Gasoline prices near our mountain are now $3.39 per gallon. We could be over $4 per gallon by the end of summer. I see two scenarios.

1) We continue oil resource wars (whether we call them something else or not) until we destroy the planet.

2) We find a way to work together and solve a common problem all of us Earthlings face.

I am cheering for option two. I don't know if that will happen. I was heartened the other day by an article I found about T. Boone Pickens. Isn't that a great name? Mr. Pickens made his money on oil. Now he is putting his money in wind.

Next month, Pickens' company, Mesa Power, will begin buying land and ordering 2,700 wind turbines that will eventually generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity - the equivalent of building two commercial scale nuclear power plants - enough power for about 1 million homes.

"These are substantial," said Pickens, speaking to students at Georgetown University on Thursday. "They're big."

....Pickens' wind farm is part of his wider vision for replacing natural gas with wind and solar for power generation, and using the natural gas instead to power vehicles.

To picture Pickens' energy strategy, imagine a compass.

Stretching from north to south from Saskatchewan to Texas would be thousands of wind turbines, which could take advantage of some of the best U.S. wind production conditions.

On the east-west axis from Texas to California would be large arrays of solar generation, which could send electricity into growing Southern California cities like Los Angeles.

It will be interesting to watch what humanity decides to do with itself.